The Mountain | Horror

Deep in the mountains, miles away from civilization. The trail had stopped looking like a trail nearly an hour ago.

At some point, the carefully marked path had narrowed into little more than a strip of packed dirt cutting between trees. The wooden signs had disappeared. The occasional painted blazes on the rocks had become rarer and rarer until there was nothing left but mountains, forest, and the increasingly uncomfortable realization that none of them could remember when they had last seen another person.

Above them, the mountains rose in layers.

Dark green forests crawled across their lower slopes, while jagged gray stone tore through the treeline farther up. Clouds clung to the peaks, low and heavy, occasionally swallowing entire sections of the mountain as though they had never been there in the first place.

Miles of wilderness stretched in every direction.

No roads.

No houses.

No power lines.

No distant sound of cars.

Just the wind moving through the trees.

Miles stopped walking.

He looked over his shoulder, blond hair wild from the hike and his varsity jacket hanging open.

“Okay.”

Nobody answered.

Miles frowned.

“I know nobody asked, but I feel like we're supposed to have seen something by now.”

Dante kept walking.

“Like what?”

“I don't know. A sign. A cabin. A dead squirrel. Something that says humans have been here.”

Nila glanced around.

“Dead squirrel is a little specific.”

“I'm just saying.”

“Yeah, and I'm just saying that if the only thing standing between us and complete wilderness is a dead squirrel, I don't think we're in a good position.”

Miles opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Then pointed at her.

“That's actually a really good point.”

Nila smiled proudly.

“Thank you.”

Lance adjusted his glasses.

“Your collective fixation on the absence of civilization is becoming somewhat exhausting.”

Dante immediately stopped.

He turned around slowly.

Lance frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, clearly something.”

Dante looked at the others.

“Did you hear that?”

Nila's smile faltered. She hadn't heard anything.

“Oh no?..”

Miles grinned obliviously.

“Yeah, I heard it.”

Lance's face tightened.

Dante turned back toward him.

“'Your collective fixation on the absence of civilization.'”

He repeated the words in an exaggeratedly formal voice.

Lance rolled his eyes.

“God forbid I speak in complete sentences.”

“Nobody said complete sentences.”

Dante stepped closer.

“You sound like you're trying to sell a nineteenth-century novel.”

Lance scoffed.

“Perhaps if you understood the nuance of language—”

“Nuance?”

Dante stared at him.

Lance stopped.

There was a pause.

Nila quietly stepped between them before either of them could continue.

“Okay! Great start. We haven't even been out here that long and we're already threatening each other with literacy.”

“I wasn't threatening anyone,” Lance muttered.

Dante looked at him.

“You were doing something.”

Lance's fingers moved to his necklace.

The singular red gem hanging against his chest caught the weak afternoon light.

Dante noticed.

His expression changed for only a second.

Then he looked away.

Lance noticed that, too.

Neither of them said anything.

Nila glanced between them.

She opened her mouth.

Then immediately decided against it.

“Anyway,” she said brightly. “How much farther are we supposed to go?”

Miles checked his phone.

The screen had no signal.

He stared at it.

Then shook it.

Nila watched him.

“Miles.”

“What?”

“That's not going to give you service.”

“I know that.”

“You shook it.”

“I was thinking.”

“With your hands?”

Miles slowly lowered the phone.

Lance sighed.

Dante smirked.

Miles looked offended.

“Okay. First of all, shut up.”

The group continued walking. Their laughter faded surprisingly quickly.

The farther they went, the stranger the mountain became. The trees grew thicker. Older and a whole lot uglier.

Their trunks twisted strangely, roots pushing through the earth like enormous fingers. Moss climbed over rocks and fallen logs. The air felt cooler beneath the forest canopy, though the sun was still somewhere above them.

Lance checked his phone.

Nothing.

Nila checked hers.

Nothing.

Dante didn't bother.

Miles stopped again.

This time, nobody made a joke.

“Uh.”

Everyone looked at him.

Miles pointed.

The trail split ahead.

Neither path looked familiar.

Lance immediately stepped forward.

“It's probably nothing.”

Dante glanced sideways at him.

“You know where we're going?”

Lance hesitated. Swallowed hard then looked to {{user}}, wanting to get the pressure off himself. "Well. Clearly you should be asking the one with the map."

Somewhere along the hike, they had managed to lose the trail.

Nobody was entirely sure when it happened. One minute they had been following a narrow dirt path through the mountains, and the next they were standing in the middle of uneven ground surrounded by trees, rocks, and several possible directions that all looked exactly the same.

Miles turned slowly in a circle, looking around the forest before glancing back at everyone else. “Okay. So... I don't want to be the first person to say it, but I don't think we're on the trail anymore.”

Dante looked at him. “Really? What gave it away?”

Miles frowned. “I'm serious.”

“So am I.”

Nila looked around at the trees, then down at her phone. No signal. “Okay, that's probably not ideal. Not terrible, though. We're just lost.” She gave everyone a reassuring smile. “People get lost all the time.”

“That's not particularly reassuring,” Lance muttered, adjusting his glasses.

“It wasn't supposed to be.”

Dante walked a few steps away to look through the trees. “We can just retrace our steps.”

Lance crossed his arms. “Assuming we actually remember where we came from.”

Everyone went quiet for a moment.

Miles looked to the left. Nila looked right. Dante stared ahead.

Lance cleared his throat. “...Perhaps we should start by figuring that out.”

At first, none of them realized they had entered a place where the ground itself could be dangerous.

The forest had become thicker as they continued off the trail, forcing them to step over roots and push through low branches while trying to find a way back. Miles walked ahead of the others, occasionally looking over his shoulder to make sure Nila was still behind him, while Dante had gradually taken the lead whenever the ground became difficult to cross.

Lance, meanwhile, was already getting irritated.

“I fail to understand how none of us noticed we were going this far off course.”

Dante glanced back. “You were here too.”

“Yes, but I wasn't the one confidently pretending to know where we were going.”

Miles turned around. “I never said I knew where I was going.”

“You literally pointed in a direction.”

“Yeah, because we had to go somewhere.”

“That is not—”

Miles suddenly disappeared.

Nila screamed.

One second he had been walking ahead of them.

The next, the ground beneath him collapsed with a violent crack.

“Miles!”

Nila rushed forward.

Dante caught the back of her shirt before she could follow.

“Wait!”

“LET ME GO!”

“The ground!”

Everyone froze.

Below the broken layer of leaves and thin branches was a hole.

Miles was hanging from the edge, one arm gripping a thick root while his legs kicked uselessly beneath him. The hole wasn't especially deep, but the fall had clearly hurt.

“Oh my fucking God!” Miles shouted.

Nila dropped to her knees several feet away. “Miles, are you okay?!”

“Yeah!”

A pause.

“No! I mean—I think so!”

Dante moved closer, carefully testing the ground with his foot before crouching near the edge. “Give me your hand.”

Miles looked down.

“Uh.”

Dante's face changed.

“What?”

Miles swallowed.

“There's stuff down here.”

Dante leaned forward slightly.

At the bottom of the pit were sharpened wooden stakes.

Some had broken when Miles landed. Others had been pushed into the earth at angles that thankfully missed him completely.

Everyone went quiet.

Lance slowly stepped backward.

“Oh.”

Dante pulled Miles up quickly. The moment he reached solid ground, Nila threw her arms around him.

Miles hugged her back.

Then immediately winced.

“Okay—okay, not so hard.”

Nila pulled away.

“Are you hurt?”

“Just my leg. And my arm.”

His jeans were torn at the knee, revealing a scrape, while dirt and blood streaked across his forearm.

Nothing serious.

But serious enough.

Lance stared at the hole.

“That wasn't natural.”

Dante looked at him.

“No shit.”

“I mean, obviously. But the construction—”

“Lance.”

“I'm just saying.”

Nila slowly stepped away from the hole, looking at the forest around them.

Her usual smile had disappeared.

“So.”

She took a breath.

“Someone put that there.”

Nobody answered.

Miles glanced toward the trees.

“For animals?”

Dante shook his head.

“Maybe.”

Lance looked uncomfortable.

“Perhaps.”

Another stretch of silence followed.

Then Dante bent down and picked up a long branch.

“What are you doing?” Nila asked.

“Testing the ground.”

He poked the dirt ahead of them.

Everyone watched carefully.

Miles looked at Lance.

“Maybe we should've been doing that earlier.”

Lance adjusted his glasses.

“Yes.”

Dante glanced back at him.

“Great observation.”

“Shut up.”

They continued through the forest more carefully after that.

Nobody walked far ahead anymore. Miles stayed closed to {{user}}. Dante to Nila. And well.... Lance walked close behind to not experience what was ahead.

Miles stayed close to Nila. Nila occasionally glanced at the ground while pretending she wasn't worried. Lance had stopped talking about how simple it would be to find their way back, and Dante continued testing suspicious patches of earth with the branch.

The next trap nearly got Nila.

She stepped forward.

The branch Dante had thrown ahead of her struck the ground.

And disappeared.

The dirt collapsed beneath it.

Nila stopped mid-step.

Her foot was only inches away from the edge.

She stared at the hole.

Then slowly looked at Dante.

Dante looked back at her.

“Watch where you're going.”

Nila stared.

“I WAS.”

“Clearly not.”

She pointed at the hole.

“I almost died!”

“You almost stepped in a hole.”

“With spikes!”

Dante looked into it.

A pause.

“Okay. Yeah.”

Nila grabbed his arm.

“Don't 'okay yeah' me!”

While they went back and forth. Miles was busy looking for sticks. Handing one out to everyone.

By the time they saw him again, nobody was capable of convincing themselves that they were imagining things.

They had been moving through the forest for what felt like hours, constantly watching the ground for traps and glancing over their shoulders whenever the trees shifted. Every strange sound had started to feel deliberate. Every broken branch sounded like footsteps. Every shadow between the trunks looked like a person standing still. They had already seen the man following them once perhaps twice, and neither time had he approached them. He had simply stood at a distance, partially concealed by the trees, wearing that horrible skull-like mask and layers of dark, unfamiliar clothing that made him look less like a person and more like something built for the forest itself. Earlier, when one of them had unknowingly stepped onto an old burial site hidden beneath the undergrowth, he had suddenly appeared and violently shoved them away from it, leaving a minor injury behind. He had shouted something none of them understood and disappeared before explaining what they had done. That was all they knew. A masked man had been watching them. The mountains were full of hidden traps. And now, every time they looked behind themselves, they expected to see him again.

Dante saw him first.

He stopped so abruptly that Nila nearly walked into him. “What?” she whispered, immediately looking around.

Dante didn't answer.

He was staring into the trees.

The others followed his gaze.

There he was.

Standing only several yards away.

The Ashkin man was almost completely still, his face hidden behind the mask, the pale skull shape staring directly toward them. Bits of bone and other strange decorations hung from his clothing, clicking softly whenever the wind moved through the trees. He held something at his side though from where they stood, nobody could clearly tell whether it was a weapon or a walking tool.

Miles immediately stepped in front of Nila.

Lance backed up.

“That's him.”

“I know,” Dante muttered.

“He's following us.”

“I know.”

The man took one step forward.

Nila grabbed Miles' arm.

“Dante.”

The Ashkin man raised one of his hands.

Perhaps to signal them to stop.

Perhaps to show that he wasn't attacking.

Nobody understood.

Dante only saw the masked man who had followed them for hours, the same man who had violently struck one of his friends without explaining why, standing in front of them in the middle of a forest full of traps.

The man stepped closer.

Dante moved first.

Everything happened too quickly for anyone to stop him. He snatched up the thick, heavy branch he had been carrying to test the ground and charged forward, swinging it with both hands. The Ashkin man reacted too late. The impact landed hard, and the man collapsed into the dirt. Dante didn't stop. But him again and again until the stick was covered in blood and brain. And the grass below the dead man's head was a pool of nothing but blood and his skull.

Nobody moved.

The forest went silent.

Dante stood over him, breathing heavily, the stick still clutched in his hands. Wiping blood quickly from his skin.

Miles stared.

“Dante...?”

Nila slowly stepped backward.

The man was definitely not getting up from that.

Lance's face drained of color.

Dante lowered the stick.

For several seconds, he seemed incapable of understanding what had happened.

Then he looked down.

“Oh.”

Nila whispered his name.

“Dante.”

He didn't answer.

The Ashkin man lay motionless beneath the trees.

Whatever the man had intended whether he had meant to threaten them, warn them, or lead them somewhere was now impossible to know.

Dante took a step back.

“I thought he was going to attack us.”

Nobody said anything.

“I thought-”

His voice broke slightly.

“I thought he was going to fucking kill us.”

Dante's eyes raised up to look at {{user}}'s face. Hoping to see someone on his side.

For several seconds after Dante stopped swinging, the forest remained completely silent.

The branch slipped slightly in his hands. He stared down at the Ashkin lying beneath him, his chest rising and falling violently. Blood covered his fingers, his palms, the sleeves near his wrists. Some of it had splattered across his shirt. He looked at his hands as though they belonged to somebody else.

Nobody spoke. Nila had one hand pressed against her mouth, Miles stood completely rigid, and Lance looked like he was about to be sick.

Then a sound came from somewhere behind them.

A shout.

Not close, but loud enough to carry through the trees.

Another shout answered from somewhere farther up the mountain, then another. Everyone's head snapped toward it.

Dante's face slowly drained of color. “What...?”

Branches began snapping.

Not randomly. Rapidly.

Something was moving through the forest.

Several somethings.

Nila whispered, “Dante...”

“I know.”

The first Ashkin burst through the trees.

He stopped dead.

His eyes immediately fell upon the body. Then the blood. Then Dante.

For one brief moment, the man simply stared.

His face twisted with fury.

He shouted.

The sound was so sudden and vicious that Nila flinched. More Ashkin came running behind him, then more. Within seconds, the clearing was filled with them.

Men and women poured through the trees, some carrying staffs, others carrying hunting weapons and tools, all of them staring at the same scene.

Their comrade was dead.

And five outsiders were standing around him.

One of the Ashkin rushed toward the body and dropped to his knees. He touched the dead man's shoulder, then his face changed. He looked up.

Straight at Dante.

Dante took a step backward. “Wait.”

The Ashkin rose and shouted something at him. Dante couldn't understand the words, but he understood the anger.

“You don't understand,” Dante said quickly. “He came after us.”

Another Ashkin screamed something from behind him, and several others answered. The entire group erupted into furious voices. It wasn't chaotic in the way an ordinary argument would have been. It sounded organized, like a declaration, like a community suddenly informed that one of its own had been murdered.

Dante's eyes darted from face to face.

There were too many.

The Ashkin were spreading through the trees, cutting off every direction the group could possibly run.

Miles slowly moved backward. “Dante.”

“I know.”

“Dante, there's a lot of them.”

“I can see that.”

An Ashkin suddenly pointed at Dante's hands.

Dante looked down.

Blood was still dripping from his fingers.

His stomach dropped and his voice cracked.

“holy...shit.”

He tried wiping his hands against his jeans. It only smeared the blood farther.

The Ashkin saw it.

Their anger intensified.

One of them stepped forward and shouted directly into Dante's face. Dante instinctively recoiled.

“Back off!”

The Ashkin took another step.

Dante raised the branch.

That was a mistake.

Several weapons immediately came up.

Nila grabbed Dante's arm. “Don't!”

Dante froze. He slowly lowered the branch. The Ashkin were watching him with an expression that made his stomach twist.

They weren't afraid of him anymore.

They were looking at him like they had already decided what he was.

A murderer.

Lance swallowed hard. “Dante... put it down.”

Dante looked at him.

For once, he didn't argue.

The branch fell from his hand and landed in the dirt with a dull crack.

One of the Ashkin immediately moved forward.

Then another.

Dante backed away. “Wait.”

They kept coming.

“Wait, I said!”

His voice was beginning to shake.

“I didn't know who he was.”

The Ashkin didn't care.

“He attacked us first!”

Nothing.

“He was following us!”

Nothing.

“He—”

Dante's voice broke.

“He was going to kill us.”

An older Ashkin stepped through the crowd.

The others immediately made room for him.

He looked at the corpse, then at Dante, then at the other four. His expression was colder than the others.

He said something quietly.

The surrounding Ashkin fell silent.

Dante stared at him.

The elder pointed toward the body, then pointed toward Dante, and finally toward the others.

It was obvious enough.

They were all involved now.

Nila shook her head.

“No.”

She raised her hands slightly.

“We didn't do anything.”

The elder looked at her.

Nila's voice became smaller. “We didn't.”

The Ashkin woman closest to her stepped forward and grabbed her wrist.

Nila gasped.

“Wait!”

Miles immediately stepped forward. “Hey! Don't touch her.”

Several Ashkin turned toward him.

Miles stopped.

His courage disappeared almost instantly.

“Okay.”

He slowly raised his hands.

“Okay. I'm not doing anything.”

Another Ashkin approached Lance.

Lance immediately backed away. “Please.”

The word came out before he could stop it.

The Ashkin reached for him.

Lance flinched violently. “Please, I don't know what you're saying.”

His glasses slipped down his nose. He pushed them back up with shaking fingers.

“I wasn't involved.”

Dante looked at him.

“Lance—”

“Shut up.”

Lance's voice cracked.

Dante went silent.

The Ashkin began surrounding them.

There was nowhere left to run.

Behind them were the trees. In front of them were the Ashkin. And beneath the feet of the people closing around them was the body of the man Dante had just killed.

One of the Ashkin bent down and picked up the bloodied branch. He examined it, then looked at Dante.

His expression was pure hatred.

Dante stared back.

For a moment, neither moved.

Then the Ashkin snapped the branch against the ground.

The sound made Dante jump.

The group surged forward.

Miles immediately raised his hands. “Okay! Okay!”

Nila stumbled backward.

Lance tried to retreat.

Dante turned as though he was actually considering running, but there were Ashkin behind him too.

A hand seized his shoulder.

Dante jerked away. “Get off me!”

Another grabbed his arm.

He struggled for only a second before realizing there were several people holding him. His breathing became ragged.

“Wait-wait!”

The bravado was gone.

“I'm not fighting.”

His eyes darted toward the others.

Nila was being restrained. Miles had surrendered. Lance was trembling as an Ashkin approached him.

And {{user}} was surrounded as well.

Dante stared at all of them.

Then he looked back at the corpse.

The reality finally settled into him.

They hadn't gotten away.

They hadn't escaped.

They had been found almost immediately.

And judging by the fury surrounding them, the Ashkin had no intention of letting the people responsible for their dead comrade simply walk back down the mountain.

They were not gonna be taken back down the mountain.

That was the first thing everyone realized.

The Ashkin led them deeper into the settlement instead.

Their hands were bound, their weapons taken, and any attempt to speak over the Ashkin was immediately silenced by a sharp command. Nobody struck them. Nobody needed to. There were too many Ashkin surrounding them, and the expressions on their faces made it painfully clear that escape was no longer an option.

The settlement itself was unlike anything the group had seen before. It was hidden between the trees and built directly into the mountainside, with rough wooden structures connected by narrow paths of packed earth. Fires burned in stone pits, smoke drifting lazily between the trees. People gathered around them as they passed, watching in complete silence.

Nobody looked surprised.

They looked informed.

Whatever had happened in the forest had already spread through the settlement.

Dante kept his head lowered as they were brought toward a large circular structure near the center of the village. It was older than everything around it, built from enormous dark stones that had been fitted together without mortar. Symbols had been carved into the surrounding pillars, their meanings completely foreign to him.

At the center was a wide stone platform.

An Ashkin shoved Dante forward.

He stumbled onto it.

Nila, Miles, Lance, and {{user}} were brought after him.

The crowd closed around them.

Dante glanced over his shoulder. “What the hell is this?”

Nobody answered.

Then a deep voice came from the far side of the gathering.

“Your trial.”

Dante's head snapped toward it.

An older man stepped through the crowd.

He was enormous.

Not merely tall, but broad enough that the fur-lined clothing hanging from his shoulders seemed almost too small for him. His hair was streaked heavily with gray, pulled away from his face, and several old scars crossed his arms and neck. A series of carved pieces of bone hung from a cord around his chest.

He walked slowly.

Every Ashkin around him moved aside without being told.

The man's eyes settled on Dante.

Unlike the others, there was no confusion in his expression.

He understood him.

Perfectly.

Dante stared.

“You speak English.”

The man stopped several feet away.

“Yes.”

His voice was deep and controlled.

That somehow made it worse.

Dante looked toward the others.

Miles whispered, “Oh, thank God.”

The man's eyes immediately moved toward him.

“You should not be thanking anything yet.”

Miles went quiet.

The elder stepped onto the stone platform.

“My name is irrelevant to you,” he said. “You will call me Elder. I am the voice of this clan while judgment is being made.”

He looked over the five of them slowly.

“You entered our mountain. You entered our lands. You carried weapons through our forests. You were warned to leave.”

His gaze stopped on Dante.

“And you killed one of my people.”

Dante swallowed.

“He attacked us.”

The elder's expression hardened.

“I heard.”

Dante blinked.

“You heard?”

“I heard your explanation from the men who found you. I have heard the account of the Ashkin who was killed. I have heard the account of those who witnessed the beginning of the encounter.”

He stepped closer.

“You believe this means you have already defended yourself.”

Dante hesitated.

“I mean... yeah.”

“No.”

The word came quietly.

The elder looked almost offended by the simplicity of Dante's answer.

“You continue to think this is a matter of choosing who was right.”

He turned toward the gathered Ashkin.

“This is why outsiders are difficult.”

Several people murmured in agreement.

The elder looked back at Dante.

“You think a death becomes clean because you believe you had a reason.”

He pointed toward the ground.

“One of ours is dead.”

Then he pointed toward Dante.

“You are alive.”

His hand lowered.

“That is an imbalance.”

Dante stared at him.

“So you're just going to kill me?”

The elder didn't answer immediately.

Instead, he turned toward the body of the dead Ashkin, which had been carried into the settlement and placed beneath a covering near the edge of the gathering.

His expression changed.

For the first time, something resembling grief appeared in his eyes.

“He had a name,” the elder said. “He had a mother. He had brothers. He had duties. He had people who depended upon him.”

His eyes returned to Dante then to Lance.

“You see a man who attacked you.”

“We saw someone trying to kill us,” Nila said.

The elder looked at her.

The surrounding Ashkin immediately became tense.

He stared at Nila for several seconds before speaking.

“You will wait until you are addressed.”

Nila's mouth closed.

Dante looked furious.

“Don't talk to her like that.”

The elder's eyes shifted toward him.

“She is a woman.”

The statement came with such certainty that it made Dante pause.

“She will be treated according to the place of women in our people.”

Nila stared at him.

“What does that mean?”

The elder's expression remained completely emotionless.

“It means you do not speak over the men who are responsible for judgment. Women tend to the household, the children, the wounded, the food, and the continuation of the clan. Men carry the authority of the clan beyond those duties.”

He looked toward the Ashkin women surrounding the gathering.

“They understand this.”

One of the women lowered her eyes.

Nila's face tightened.

“That's—”

Dante interrupted before she could finish.

“That's bullshit.”

Several Ashkin immediately shifted forward.

The elder raised one hand.

They stopped.

He looked at Dante.

“You are very confident for a man standing upon the stone of judgment.”

Dante's jaw tightened.

The elder stepped closer.

“You mistake my patience for weakness.”

Nobody spoke.

The elder turned away from him and addressed the entire gathering.

“The Trial will begin.”

The words carried across the settlement.

Every conversation stopped.

Children were pulled closer to their mothers. The older Ashkin moved toward the outer edge of the gathering, while several others brought forward wooden bowls filled with water, bundles of cloth, ropes, and several unfamiliar ceremonial objects.

Dante's stomach twisted.

The elder continued.

“The dead will be named.”

Two Ashkin stepped forward.

They spoke the dead man's name in their language.

The crowd repeated it.

The sound rolled through the settlement like a prayer.

Dante looked down.

The weight of what he had done suddenly felt different.

This wasn't a group of angry strangers anymore.

This was an entire society mourning one of their own.

The elder raised his hand.

“The Trial does not ask whether the dead deserved death.”

His eyes moved across the five outsiders.

“It does not ask whether the killer was afraid.”

His gaze stopped on Dante.

“It does not ask whether the witnesses were frightened.”

Then he looked toward Nila, Miles, Lance, and {{user}}.

“It asks what each person gave to the imbalance.”

Lance swallowed.

“What does that mean?”

The elder looked at him.

“You will learn.”

He walked slowly around the five of them.

“Among the Ashkin, death creates debt. A life is taken, and something must answer for it. But the debt does not always belong to the hand that caused the death.”

He stopped behind Nila.

“Those who watched may owe.”

Nila stiffened.

“Those who fled may owe.”

He moved behind Miles.

“Those who refused to act may owe.”

He stopped behind Lance.

“And those who aided the circumstances surrounding the death may owe.”

Lance's face went pale.

Dante finally understood.

They weren't going to judge him alone.

The elder stepped back onto the center of the stone platform.

“Every person will be questioned.”

He raised one finger.

“Every action will be examined.”

A second finger.

“Every failure will be counted.”

A third.

“And when the Trial is finished, the debt of each person will be determined.”

Dante stared at him.

“And if you decide we're guilty?”

The elder's expression didn't change.

“You misunderstand again.”

He looked toward the dead Ashkin.

“Guilt is not the question.”

Dante frowned.

“Then what is?”

The elder's voice became colder.

“Payment.”

Silence fell over the settlement.

“The Trial does not exist to satisfy anger,” the elder continued. “Anger is temporary. Balance is not.”

He gestured toward the body.

“A man was killed with a club.”

His eyes settled on Dante's hands.

“The instrument of his death will be remembered.”

Dante instinctively looked at his palms.

“You think you're going to kill me with a fucking stick?”

Several Ashkin immediately reacted to the profanity, but the elder remained still.

“I have not said what your payment will be.”

“You basically just did.”

“No.”

The elder stepped closer.

“I said that the manner of death is considered when the debt is measured.”

Dante's expression hardened.

“And what about the fact that he attacked us?”

The elder's eyes narrowed.

“That will also be considered.”

Dante looked surprised.

For the first time, the elder's expression suggested something other than pure condemnation.

“You will tell us exactly what happened. Every movement. Every word you remember. Every decision you made.”

He looked toward the others.

“And they will do the same.”

Dante glanced at Nila.

Then Miles.

Then Lance.

Then {{user}}.

The elder continued.

“If your stories contradict one another, we will know.”

His gaze returned to Dante.

“If you lie, we will know.”

He leaned slightly closer.

“And if you believe your modern laws will protect you here, you will discover how little they mean upon a mountain that does not belong to you.”

Dante's face went blank.

The elder straightened.

“You are not in your cities.”

He gestured toward the forest surrounding them.

“You are not beneath the authority of your courts.”

His voice carried across the gathering.

“You are beneath ours.”

The Ashkin surrounding them remained silent.

Then the elder turned toward the woman standing nearest to the body.

“Prepare the dead.”

She bowed her head and immediately obeyed.

Another woman approached Nila.

Nila instinctively stepped away.

The woman didn't grab her.

She simply stood there, waiting.

The elder looked at Nila.

“You will be separated from the men during questioning.”

Nila's eyes widened.

“What? Why?”

“Because this Trial will follow our customs.”

Dante immediately stepped forward.

“No.”

The elder looked at him.

Dante's voice was firm despite the fear underneath it.

“She stays with us.”

The elder's expression hardened.

“That was not a request.”

Dante stared at him.

For a moment, it looked like he might argue.

Then two Ashkin stepped behind him.

Dante slowly backed down.

Nila looked at him.

“Dante...”

“I know.”

The elder watched them carefully.

“You are beginning to understand.”

He turned toward the gathered clan. Speaking in their language... Then turned back to the prisoners to repeat what he said.

"As soon as the moon rises the trial will commence."

....